Chase Owens vs. Arik Royal from NOVA 2015

I was looking forward to this once since Owens is rock-s0lid and Royal is someone whom I hear a lot of positive things about. With that in mind, I was a little underwhelmed with the actual match.

The opening minutes felt sort of useless in terms of compelling storytelling and action. Instead, it was very broad character stuff that established their roles with the crowd. With that in mind, you can definitely argue that it was effective and successful. It just did not particularly interest me.

The action picked up in the second half though, and you could see that these two had potential to deliver something a little bit more in a second meeting for NOVA. There was not about the match that was annoying or executed poorly. You just could tell they were capable of a bit more. Royal won with a running boot to the face. (**1/2)

In some ways, this was more successful as an introduction to NOVA Pro than it was as a match. Everything about this company looked and sounded professional. While no one could accuse the crowd of being hot, they were certainly responsive enough, and you can clearly see there is potential to deliver a nice product. I hope to see more of them in the future.